The Outsider
by Swallow B
Summary: After Eileen's death, Severus learns something unexpected about her.


The Outsider

ooo

Thanks to JK Rowling for the characters and basic plot, Kelly Chambliss for inspiring me with her story, 'Triptych', and Albert Camus for the title and opening sentence.

ooo

Mother died last week.

There was hardly anyone at the funeral: the doctor, the grocer and Professor Dumbledore. No one else remembers Eileen Prince Snape.

She was lain to rest as far as possible from her husband, the man I avoid refering to as my father.

The doctor and the grocer shook my hands and muttered something that was meant to be condoleances.

Dumbledore embraced me. That was worse.

Then he left. I walked home alone.

I sit opposite the empty fireplace, gazing at her picture. I don't recall ever seeing her happy.

ooo

"She was never happy," I tell Dumbledore, a few days later. He is sitting on the sofa, sipping elf-made wine.

"No," he sighs.

He has not come to speak of Mother. I can feel his impatience to get down to his agenda, whatever it is this time. But he knows his duty. He has to show sympathy for my loss before he can start asking for life-threatening favours.

Slytherins, I teach my students, always recognise opportunities and catch them.

"Was she a good student?" I ask.

"Only in Potions," he answers abruptly. "And she had a rather unhealthy attraction to the Dark Arts."

His snide twinkle doesn't detract me.

"She liked the Dark Arts," I repeat. "Then why did she go against her family's wishes and marry a… drunk Muggle? It doesn't make sense."

"If you had known your mother as I knew her, at the time, you would see it does. Eileen married your father out of spite."

Spite?

"Eileen Prince was a spiteful girl… But this is your mother, of whom I am speaking, Severus. Please forgive me."

Only if you tell me more.

"Spite against whom?"

"Classmates, teachers… Severus, your mother had a most unhappy life. Let us leave her memory in peace."

I won't let him off the hook so easily.

"There can be no peace if I don't understand. She married… that man because of her classmates and teachers?"

Dumbledore sighs again. Out of boredom or annoyance at having his plans delayed?

"Let's say… one particular classmate. As I said, Eileen was full of grudge. Fortunately, she never caused any harm to anyone, apart from herself."

"Fortunately?"

"You know what I mean, Severus."

I certainly do.

"No, I don't."

"Eileen Prince's good point was that she was incapable of hurting a Flobberworm."

"She was incapable of defending herself."

"That was most unfortunate."

Inhale. Exhale. Anger will get me nowhere.

"She married out of spite?"

"Poor girl, poor Eileen. I remember her at school. I taught her. She wasn't happy, dear me, she never was."

"She held a grudge against a classmate?"

There is a bottle of Veritaserum in the kitchen. If he doesn't get on with it… On the other hand, I don't mind watching how flustered and frustrated this is making him. I can hold grudges as well as Mother. Did that classmate set a werewolf on her?

"Ah, Tom Riddle…"

Riddle? Never heard the name.

"Who could blame her, he was such a handsome boy. And knowledgeable in the Dark Arts. He seduced many, Eileen was easy prey. It was a blessing, in this case, that Riddle was incapable of love. Eileen was freed to move on."

Inhale. Exhale.

"Move on? She married a drunk Muggle brute. What good came out of that?"

"You."

"Thanks."

"You were her only joy in life."

_I _was someone's joy in life?

"Riddle ruined many people's lives…"

Dumbledore looks past me, at something only he can see. He does that often.

"Where is he now?"

"Riddle?"

He is playing for time, thinking fast.

"Riddle…" he repeats.

Then, making up his mind,

"He does not go by that name any more."

"Then what name…?"

Goose pimples and nausea have supplied me with the answer before Dumbledore utters the Name.

Inhale. Exhale.

"Mother was proud that I was a Death Eater."

"By that time, she hated her husband. I told you she was a spiteful woman."

This final drop causes the cauldron to overflow. Suddenly, I am on my feet, hissing,

"Will you please leave this house at once!"

"Severus! Please accept my apologies. That was very tactless of me."

I grit my teeth and breathe deeply, reminding myself I have little choice, while he begins to blabber about the Philosopher's Stone.

"I have no use for the Philospher's Stone. Mother is dead."

"I am sorry, Severus, but Nicolas Flamel…"

I sit down again and agree to everything he says, just to get him out of here. It's only much later that I realise I have agreed to help him hide the Philosopher's Stone at Hogwarts.

"This should be an interesting year," he concludes with a twinkle.

I would rather be bored.

As soon as he is gone – thankfully without trying to embrace me again – I tear through Mother's old papers. Mother was not that spiteful, not enough to have destroyed all her husband's pictures.

Perhaps she knew one day I would blow decades of dust off the mirror in the bathroom and compare Tobias Snape's hooked nose to my own with relief.

Tom Riddle was handsome, Dumbledore said.

Sometimes I could kill that old man.


End file.
